Transit on 3-8-05
Talking notes of Mark Rauterkus for a public address before City Council on Tuesday, March 8, 2005. ''Bill Peduto made a plea to support mass transit and send a message to the Southwestern Pennsylvania Commission (SPC) to fund transit in its meeting on Thursday at 1:30 pm.'' My name is Mark Rauterkus. My family and I reside at 108 South 12th Street on the South Side. I am a candidate for Pennsylvania Senate in the special election to be held on May 17, 2005. I have a home on the internet at Rauterkus.com and Platform.For-Pgh.org. Transportation is a hot topic and something I care greatly about. The people of the 42nd senate district use transit and rely upon these services. Downtown workers, South Side residents rely upon transit frequently. Seniors run the risk of seeing their bus riding privilages altered greatly. The West End Busway goes through the middle of the district. People in take the Overbrook line light rail line or live in Dormont are serviced by the T. Transit matters. I care. I'm working at these issues and raising them with others as best I can. For the past year, I ran a sideline blog that was dedicated to transit news and happenings, [http://Ratsburgh.blogspot.com Ratsburgh.blogspot.com]. The Save Our Transit focus, as Steve explained earlier, has a tight focus. Save Our Transit has been working on the operational budget. My focus is broad. I'm more of a generalist. I think we need to look at both the capital budget and the operational budget. The PAT shortfall was about $30-million per year. If we spend $400-million to build the unneccessary tunnels under the Allgeheny River to service the lower North Side we would be spending more than 10-years worth of operational budget shortfalls. The re-do of the existing Gateway Center stop downtown is going to give us a glass-enclosed subway stop. That is foolishness too. When we turn back the clock a little, consider the new T stop, parking garage at the PNC Firstside Center. A new stop was built on the existing line and it gave us no net gain. People don't live there. The top of the parking garage is never in use. It was a deal to satisfy PNC and entice them to build their building, at great public expense. I want us to think again. We need to consider everything from the operational side to the capital investments. We can't continue to build wrongheaded projects that don't really help matters. Another topic, demand accountability. We need to demand structural accountability. Without accountability, we'll get nothing. Nothing gets delivered if nothing is on the line in terms of accountability. Funding guarantees nothing unless accountability is inserted. The ongoing seasonal battleabout transit is much like the baind-aid approach. These are failures. I understand. It is broke. And, it is broken. My goal is to fix it. Others might have the goal to fund it. Mine is to fix it. We need to send people to Harrisburg that understand these matters and want to do the work of the people.=